It's a Stitch Uphttps://itsastitchup.co.uk
Yarn in colour. Beautiful hand dyed yarn, ethically sourced and dyed at our East London studioThu, 04 Jun 2020 13:44:32 +0100en-GBhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1What’s in a skein?https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/whats-in-a-skein/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/whats-in-a-skein/#respondSat, 25 Apr 2020 22:53:43 +0000https://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5900We know that hand-dyed yarn is not cheap and for most of us it’s a special treat. Ever wondered why it costs what it does? We thought you might be curious to see exactly where your money goes.

This seemed like a good time to shed some light on yarn pricing because, unfortunately, the time has come for us to raise our prices. We know that’s not good news, especially at the moment when we’re all facing so much uncertainty, so we want to transparent about what makes up our costs.

We’ve based our calculations on skeins sold on our website. If we crunched the numbers for yarn sold through our LYS stockists, at an event or from our Etsy store, the percentages would look quite different.

Materials costs – around 38%

It should be reassuring that raw materials make up the biggest chunk of the costs of a skein. These costs include the bare yarn, dyes and other chemicals used in the dyeing process. We’ve also factored in the printed bands and labels – the complete physical product.

The yarn we use is relatively expensive – costing more to us at wholesale than some commercial yarn costs to buy at retail. However, we are happy to pay more for superb, consistent quality and commitments from our suppliers to ethical, sustainable sourcing.

Unfortunately, the cost of yarn and fleece has increased noticeably since our last price increase 18 months ago, largely due to the economic impact of Brexit, and this is the main reason why we’ve had to review our prices now.

Payment services – around 6%

Every time we receive an order, our payment providers take their cut. Using PayPal, this works out at about £1 per skein, but the amount varies depending on the transaction currency, country location of the customer and size of the order. Sometimes it feels frustrating to lose this money upfront, but it’s important to remember that without payment services, we wouldn’t have a business at all. PayPal provides us with the tools to build secure e-commerce into our website with minimal web development. It also has features like automated subscriptions which we rely on for our yarn clubs.

Studio costs – around 9%

We do all our yarn dyeing in a dedicated studio space. Rent is a fixed cost, so it’s hard to quantify the studio cost per skein – it depends on how many skeins we’ve managed to dye each month! These costs also include power and our travel to and from the studio.

We have moved studio twice in the last two years, having lost our previous spaces to redevelopment. The pressure for housing in the capital means that industrial areas, like the one where our current studio is situated, are disappearing. We feel very lucky to have an affordable workspace! The studio made it possible for us to scale up and dye much larger batches.

Equipment costs – around 7%

Again, this is a tricky one to quantify per skein, so we’ve factored our equipment spending throughout the year divided by the approximate number of skeins we’ve dyed.

This segment includes buying and maintaining the equipment we use in the studio (industrial catering and laboratory equipment) and beyond (e.g. IT & photography equipment, software and storage furniture). I was reluctant to invest in expensive kit when I first started the business, making do with what I had. Over time I have come to realise that the right equipment makes the job safer, faster and easier. I am eager to invest in tools that last.

Loyalty programme – around 6%

We launched our Yarn Loyalty Card just over two years ago as a way to say thank you to the customers that support us time and again. Like most small businesses, we felt incredible pressure to offer discount codes, introductory offers, Black Friday deals and January sales. But, these encourage impulse buying, over-consumption and artificial pricing are at odds with our business values, so we decided to do something different.

This is the amount we spend running the loyalty programme, which goes straight back to customers in the form of the bonus yarn they earn collecting tokens.

Postage & packaging – around 4%

Even though we charge for shipping, this amount doesn’t cover our shipping costs. The main reason is that environmentally-friendly packaging materials are expensive! As a tiny business, we often find that we don’t qualify for bulk discounts that larger retailers get on things like envelopes and tape. We have to factor in those costs when we’re pricing our goods, but it means that we’re able to ship larger orders for free within the UK because they’re more efficient on packaging materials, and we can pass that saving onto you.

Take-home pay – around 30%

This part effectively pays my wages, not only for the time spent dyeing, but the many and varied activities that are running the business. Here are just a few:

Labelling, photographing and listing new colours on the website, social media and newsletter

Responding to your messages about everything from choosing a gift for a loved one to tracking down a missing order

Ordering supplies and keeping on top of our accounts

Researching and testing out new yarns and fibre to develop new lines

Designing print materials and building new website features

Writing this post!

So, was that what you expected? We hope you agree that our yarn is fairly priced and and that there’s a lot going into every skein. We would love to see how commercial yarn compares!

Like many of the best inventions, Karma Blend was born out of a particular quandary. It had been bothering me for some time that fibre marketed explicitly as vegan, like faux cashmere and faux angora, is normally plastic. At the same time, I have been missing the glittery effect fibres I loved so much after giving them up because of their environmental impact.

I wondered if there was a way to bring some of the interest of effect fibres into spinning without plastics, an alternative to animal fibres could exist that is both biodegradable and similar in feel to the synthetic options.

Of course, many plant-based fibres that are vegan-friendly and sustainable, such as linen and ramie, have existed for millennia. They may well be just the thing for some projects, but personally, I don’t enjoy working with them. They’re not well suited to making the kinds of yarn I want to use, whether it’s because of their coarseness and stiffness or because they’re harder to draft.

Thankfully, a vast array of fibres have come onto the market recently, and I set about trying them out in order to create a blend with the characteristics I was looking for.

The fibres

Bamboo fibre has a soft, smooth feel, a glossy appearance and natural drape. It’s similar to silk, but with a shorter and more consistent staple length of around 70mm (compared to 150-250mm for Mulberry silk). It is absorbent and has antibacterial properties, making it pleasant to wear.

There are several reasons why this fibre has strong eco-credentials: It is water-efficient to grow and rapidly regenerates from the same rootstock. It is harvested without disturbing the soil. It is fully compostable.

The bamboo we use is turned into spinnable fibre using a closed-loop process (which means that the chemicals are extracted and recycled back into the system) and is OEKO-TEX 100 certified.

Mint fibre is a relatively new-to-market cellulose fibre. Of all those we trialled, we found it to have the loveliest feel thanks to its incredibly fine fibres. It has a staple length of up to 80mm. Because it’s so fine, it’s a little delicate on its own but works well when blended with other fibres.

It has a slight crimp that reminds me of ultra-fine merino, and it adds a little woolly texture to our blend. In the undyed form (as we’re using it), it has a soft sheen and warm natural tone.

The sari silk is from India and is a waste product. While, of course, silk is of not a vegan fibre, our hope is that people who avoid animal products for environmental reasons will find the recycled product a good compromise.

The sari silk adds vibrant bursts of colour both as little clusters/nepps and longer fibres of different weights. It’s less visible in the tops but pops right when spun and gives that tweed appearance, as you can see from our spun sample below. The random nature of this being a recycled product means that it has fibres running in different directions, giving the blend a slightly ‘woollen’ lofty feel, very different from virgin silk.

Spinning notes

I got a new lazy kate for Christmas, and so out of a desire to make the best use of this, and to try and push the fibre out of its comfort zone, I decided to spin a high twist 3 ply sock/fingering weight yarn.

My biggest worry would be that the fibre might be challenging to draft (especially for someone like me who mainly spins wool). I’m happy to report that this was not the case at all, maybe because the fibres are relatively short.

Spinning the fine, even singles I intended was something I found harder. I had a few breakages at first (the downside of shorter fibres), but I got used to it fairly quickly.

I was surprised that my finished yarn is 83 grams and 226 meters, giving a grist of 2722 meters per kg, something like a heavy sport weight. However, at 23 WPI, its diameter is that of a light sock/fingering.

Curious about how this interesting yarn might behave when knitted, I swatched at a couple of different gauges. First, using 3.25mm needles gave a gorgeously drapey swatch.

The yarn is quite thick-and-thin because of the silk nepps, but gentle blocking evened out the stitches nicely. Stitches are defined and open without being see-through. The colour effects are quite beautiful. This sample would make an excellent summer cardigan or top, and would be lovely to wear. The yarn would be perfect for lacework on larger needles too.

Still wondering about the possibility of socks, I made another swatch using 2.25mm needles, and my! what a difference.

It feels sturdy, dense and snuggly, and the colours appear softer. I think it could work for socks, and that’s probably what the skein will end up as, but there’s less elasticity than with a wool knit fabric, so a good fit will be critical and it was not particularly easy to knit at this tension.

Closing thoughts

I don’t believe in strict rules about what fibre can be made into what yarn, but I would say that Karma Blend is best suited to thicker yarns than mine, of sport weight or above. It is a good fit for plied yarns, it would be a challenge to use it for low-twist singles as it’s not as strong as wool or virgin silk.

Although it has very different properties to wool, I am surprised how pleasingly woolly the swatches feel to handle. At the same time, they are softer than any wool in existence. In terms of capturing the look if wool tweed, again, it scores very highly, and aided by a delicate halo.

All in all, I think it’s a great extension to our range and fills a gap I didn’t think it was possible to.

But don’t take our word for it, Heather has kindly been testing it for us, and you can see how she got on here, here and here.

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/introducing-karma-blend-fibre/feed/0What we’re doing to ensure everyone’s safety at this timehttps://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/what-were-doing-to-ensure-everyones-safety-at-this-time/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/what-were-doing-to-ensure-everyones-safety-at-this-time/#respondTue, 17 Mar 2020 14:31:33 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5865We know that many of you are feeling especially anxious at the moment, and we are too. These are unprecedented times and it is very much not “business as usual” for us. I hope it goes without saying that we have always practised good hygiene, but want to be transparent about our procedures for anyone who needs reassurance. We also need to tell you about some changes we’re making to ensure our own safety and how they may affect our customer service.

This is very much not In these uncertain times everything is liable to change, and we will keep you updated on our usual channels.

Packing and handling

We have a dedicated room in our home for storing goods, packing and admin, which visitors do not have access to (we don’t plan on having any visitors at the moment anyway!). As soon as yarn is dry, it is moved to sealed zip-lock bags on our stock shelves. All packing materials are also covered (in closed drawers). I will be packing all orders myself for the foreseeable future. I thoroughly wash our my hands before handling yarn and packing orders. We have a dedicated packing station, where food and drink are never consumed.

As I am immuno-compromised and unfortunately fall into a high-risk group, we have taken the decision as a household to minimise our contact with others and avoid public transport completely. In the (hopefully unlikely) event that anyone in our household falls ill, we will cease shipping immediately and any customers with open orders have the option of a full refund, or for your goods to be held until any risks have passed. We will also inform customers with recently shipped orders so they have the option to quarantine

Shipping

We pride ourselves on a quick turnaround (we’re very happy to offer what customers describe as “impossibly fast shipping”), but in order to minimise my risk of infection, we we’re reducing our mail drops to two or three days a week.

We have a number of alternatives to walking to the local Post Office if this stops being possible: We can use an unstaffed parcel drop box a longer walk away; a friend has offered to collect parcels from our door; we also have the option to pay for Royal Mail collections. We may decide to withdraw services like Special Delivery that require scanning at drop-off.

Studio procedures and closure

Every skein that has gone through our studio has been handed with the strict health and safety procedures at the studio for our own protection and yours. These include our protective clothing, gloves and respirator masks, cleaning all surfaces and equipment after every session and yarn being washed and rinsed after dyeing. Our studio is a self-contained unit within a larger building in an industrial setting that has never been open to the public. We have an assistant dyer who has helped on a freelance basis during busy times, they are fully trained to follow our safety procedures and are supervised to do so. We do not have any employees or other business visitors to the studio.

As of yesterday the dye studio is closed because I am reliant on local buses to get there. This was not a difficult decision given the risks, but certainly creates major challenges to continuing our business activities. This is especially tough as I have already lost almost six weeks this year due to ill health. Our kitchen is not suitable for dyeing safely, so we will dependant sunny days to use our outside space. I cannot dye at scale or reproduce many of our colourways with the limited space and equipment I now have available. In practice, there will be smaller updates with fewer repeatable colourways.

We already planned to diversify our range with more products that we don’t require as much labour, such as undyed yarn, blended fibre, dyeing kits and knitting patterns. We are considering stocking other products, knitting needles for example, but this is a difficult time to be taking on that kind of financial risk. Please tell us if there is anything you’d like to see in our shop!

Custom orders

We have left our custom order request form open, and we’ll continue to dye batches to order whenever we’re able. We ask for your understanding in that there are some shades we won’t be able to dye at all without access to our studio equipment, and individual dye lots will be smaller. Please don’t feel that your request might be a burden, we value every order and we will do our best to help.

How we can help each other

Our focus as a business has always been online, rather in-person sales at yarn shows, so we’re in a fortunate position to be able to continue trading. It’s a Stitch Up is my full time job and I expect my income to reduce – our LYS stockists will be suffering immensely, and we know that everyone will have less money to spend luxuries like hand-dyed yarn, and we will not be able to dye as much – but I think we can weather this.

If you’re lucky enough to have a few spare quid, please consider using it to support those in our industry who’s primary income is teaching classes, vending at shows or traditional retail, many are sole traders (like us) and at present have no entitlement to sick pay or compensation. Most of all, we ask you to donate whatever you can to your local food bank and charities supporting homeless people, refugees and survivors of domestic violence. So many people are facing this crisis in an incredibly vulnerable position, without a stable or access to basics, and we need to think of them first.

If you have any questions or concerns about any of our processes, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/what-were-doing-to-ensure-everyones-safety-at-this-time/feed/0First steps in Macraméhttps://itsastitchup.co.uk/our-projects/first-steps-in-macrame/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/our-projects/first-steps-in-macrame/#respondThu, 05 Mar 2020 14:57:35 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5834A few weeks ago I decided that I needed to learn macramé, and when I get an idea into my head there is really no stopping me, so by the next day I had acquired a book.

Materials arrived a few days later, and I was off! My first project – a two-tier plant hanger – was finished in under two weeks, and I am eagerly planning the next few.

Why this sudden flurry? I’ve had a lot of time spent at home recently as I’ve not been well enough to work. In my previous home I had so many plants; orchids, cacti, ferns – there seemed to be a perfect spot where each plant would thrive. After we moved, so many plants died because this wasn’t the case in our new home. It is odd in that it has no windowsills, is incredibly dry and every available spot is either next to a radiator or dark. My daughter was born just a few months after we moved and, as you can imagine, making the place as we would like it has been low on our list of priorities.

There are so many houseplants I would like to grow, and so few places I can put them, and while I was stuck at home I realised how much this (and the general lack progress on the house) was bothering me. A lovely set of shelves solved the problem in one room, providing a happy home for my sad Fittonia and sun scorched Pilea cutting (both look much better now), and made space for a new Philodendron acquisition.

Other rooms don’t even have suitable walls for shelving. Plant hangers popped into my head as a way to get plants into difficult spaces, and macramé as the best way to make them happen on a budget.

Before we go any further, just in case anyone’s reading is itching to remark about macramé belonging in the 70s, I’d like to point out that I am from the 70s. I have zero time for clichés about crafts after devoting years to sharing my love of knitting as a contemporary creative pursuit in the face of numerous stupid stereotypes.

I am a total newcomer to macramé. There are so many options for learning new skills these days, from free tutorials and videos to online courses, and I even have a local maker space Make Town that offers macramé workshops. But for me, books suit my learning style best because I like get a broad understanding and get a sense of the full range of possibilities before embarking on a project. I find it difficult to follow instructions without context, and I like diagrams to refer back to.

The book

Macramé by Fanny Zedenius ticked all the boxes for me. It is pitched at the beginner, giving a helpful guide to materials and tools, and even tips on how to care for your hands and body while knotting. It has a clearly-presented reference of knots followed by a lovely and diverse set of patterns which cover every application for macramé I had imagined and beyond. I was very happy to find no less than four styles of plant hanger to keep my busy, but surprised at the innovative and practical uses of macramé for homeware, to provide shade and even seating.

While my interest in macramé is mainly functional, the book also features numerous decorative projects.

The patterns are specified using both written instructions and pictorially for each step.

I found this really helpful because there are definitely some steps that despite being quite easy to execute are difficult to communicate through words.

What sets this book apart from others is the stunningly beautiful photography, presenting the projects in the context of a contemporary living environment.

In the introduction, the author talks about growing up with a love of many different crafts, but how on discovering macramé it became almost an obsession, overtaking all other. This might sounds strange to many people, but it’s something I can certainly understand and would describe how I feel about knitting! The author’s passion for macramé really comes through in this book and is both inspiring and encouraging.

The project

Just like with knitting yarn, there are standard weights of macramé cord. But, when looking for suitable cord for my project I felt a little underwhelmed by the specialist cord available. Compared with the endless yarn universe, the choice felt limited I didn’t want to invest in a kilo roll I may not use.

The designer writes about not being limited to specialist cord, and so knowing that I wanted a bright colour, so I decided to use a ball of Rico crochet cotton aran in a bold shade of mint. This cost a humble £1.89 and roughly matched the 2.5mm cord width called for by the pattern. The main difference between this and a purpose-made macrame cord is that it is softer and less tightly-spun, which gives the knots less definition, but this didn’t bother me for a first project.

I opted to make the double plant hanger from the book because I liked the design the best. When gathering up unwieldy 7m lengths of cotton there was certainly a point when I wondered if this was a good idea, but I am happy to say that this was my only moment of doubt.

I was surprised how quickly I developed a technique to work the knots efficiently. I used the warp peg from my loom to attach the hanging loop to a table, which was a good height for me. Working for just half and hour at at time as I felt like it, I quickly moved through each step of the pattern with rarely a hitch. As the project progressed, of course the lengths of working yarn grow shorter and easier to manage.

To bead or not to bead? I wasn’t sure if I beads were really my style, but I decided to include them in order to try out the techniques and I definitely think they add something.

The bulk of the plant hanger is made up of square knots (the flat bits) and half square knots (the twists), which are very straightforward. Joining the four groups of strands together under each pot is a row of crown knots.

Crown knots are a beautiful thing but also the trickiest technique of the project, requiring the four groups of strands to be manipulated under and over each other all at once. My only mistake of the project was in the first crown knot. I noticed long after the fact that two of the strands had been crossed over and as a result the knot doesn’t sit right. A word of warning would have been helpful, but luckily it’s not noticeable under the pot and I know for next time.

The completed project is an excellent addition to the house, and is already providing a home for two neglected spider plants.

Now that I’ve good a good understanding of the knots and how they work together, I am looking forward to experimenting with different designs and materials – I’m already eyeing up a large cone of t-shirt yarn. Fanny Zedenious’ book is packed with ideas and inspiration to keep me going for quite a while. The biggest challenge is choosing between all the beautiful plant possibilities!

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/our-projects/first-steps-in-macrame/feed/0Unravel Festival 2020https://itsastitchup.co.uk/shows-exhibitions/unravel-festival-2020/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/shows-exhibitions/unravel-festival-2020/#respondFri, 28 Feb 2020 16:14:15 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5809With over 80 exhibitors and numerous classes and talks, Unravel is one of the biggest fixtures on the UK yarn calendar. It takes place annually over three days at Farnham Maltings, 1h by train from central London’s Waterloo Station, and is dedicated to yarn, knitting and related crafts. I travelled down on the Saturday with my yarn buddy Therése aka Brixton Purl. Believe it or not, this was my first time visiting this fabled festival, and of course I brought my camera along in order to report back. I can tell you now there was so much to see, of which I barely scratched the surface, so let’s crack on!

Our first stop was the Barley Room, where I found fellow Walthamstow dyer The Wool Kitchen. On her stand was this sample of the genius Stop, Drop and Pop crochet shawl by Joanne Scrace, which shows off The Wool Kitchen’s M2-9 shade to perfection.

Pink Hazel is a new-to-me maker with a striking range of project bags in contemporary fabrics.

I made my only purchase of the day (yes, really) at another new-to-me stand in the Barley room, Needle & Fred. I was very taken with their colours, and their pun names were also right up my street (I chose “Coral Me Maybe”). I would have taken a better photo of this peachy design but it’s already caked up and being used in a project!

I had the great pleasure of meeting Caz, the talented spinner and dyer behind Wulla, whose unique and vibrant work I’ve long admired.

I have ultimate respect for those dyers who offer self-striping yarns, especially those who ball it up by hand, because the work involved is epic! The Yarn Badger is one such dyer discovery. The colours make me think of spring!

MAD Scientist Yarns was also nestled in the Tindle Studio, whose colour aesthetic is right up my street.

In the Long Kiln Room, The Urban Purl‘s superb speckles were turning heads.

New dyer Ted Knits had a beautifully presented stand with some stunning samples, including this geometric brioche shawl (anyone know the pattern?).

There were two further rooms of exhibitors upstairs, but I found them too crowded to stop and browse. Third Vault Yarns stand was overflowing with gorgeous hand-dyed, which I regret not being able to show you.

In the Cellar Bar area, it was lovely to see an abundance of handspun from Farm Crafts, including bouncy, chunky wool and glossy, textured mohair.

In the same room, Spectrum Fibre‘s perfectly coordinated neon floof was an absolute delight.

Moving into the Great Hall, again, the crowds made photograph a challenge but there were some great exhibitors to see.

Dusty Dimples stand was so pretty, with a sweet lace backdrop and fairy lights (you’ll have to take my word for it because it was far too popular to get a photo of the whole booth). Wool & Pine’s Sorrel sweater is perfect in their softly heathered peach tones.

Spin City‘s booth was full of shiny, fluffy temptations as ever. I caught Louise doing a weaving demo inspired by the ‘Winter Palace’ themed spin-along I’m taking part in on her Facebook Group. The way she combines colours and textures is always inspiring.

This cardigan sample from Spin City is proof that you can knit whatever you like with your misfit handspun.

Our final port of call in the Great Hall is East London LYS Knit With Attitude, who brought a fine selection of Norwegian yarn. Among this was their last ever consignment from Garnsurr, a dyeing social enterprise which has sadly been forced to close. I absolutely loved the deep colours of eco wool from Hillesvåg Ullvarefabrikk.

Countess Ablaze‘s riot of colour in the Great Hall well deserves a mention, but instead of taking photos I got talking to an Instagram friend after recognising her epic invaders cardigan!

My thoughts on the festival as newcomer are that they had worked hard to bring together a really good variety of aesthetics and crafts. The venue was very nice, and although my journey was long (around 2 hours each way) it was very easy, and there was no shortage of like-minded knitters to chat to on the train (thanks Annette, Anna and Eli).

Although the venue is something of a warren, in general the spaces were well thought out and visitors could circulate easily. However the two upstairs rooms that I could not photograph were a squeeze at best, and parts of the Great Hall were cramped. The good-natured crowd helped make it bearable, unlike other events I can think of (Knitting & Stitching Show I’m looking at you).

I’m still suffering from vertigo/dizziness and exhaustion following health problems at the start of the year, and I knew that a busy yarn show would be a challenge. I made the last minute decision to go after reading on the Unravel website that there would be ample seating, as well as a quiet room to make the event easier for neurodiverse visitors. These efforts are really important for people with long term access needs. Unfortunately, when Therése and I needed to take a break (she has also been feeling less than 100%) our only option was the floor in an outside marquee. I also learned, from someone who really needed it, that the quiet room was not exactly quiet. This is unfortunate, and I hope the organisers will improve on this next time.

Despite finding the day a bit of a struggle physically, I really enjoyed the event overall, discovered some fantastic makers, caught up with friends and stashed a lovely skein!

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/shows-exhibitions/unravel-festival-2020/feed/0FO: Flaum Cardiganhttps://itsastitchup.co.uk/our-projects/fo-flaum-cardigan/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/our-projects/fo-flaum-cardigan/#respondWed, 12 Feb 2020 13:10:58 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5791Over the last couple of years there has been a definite change in my approach to knitting and making in general. I have become far less easily seduced by interesting-looking techniques and details, and much more focused on filling the gaps in my wardrobe and creating things I really need. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be technically and visually interesting, just that they have to also be functional, wearable, well-fitting and suit my style. Sometimes that means that the process might be a bit of a slog, as was definitely the case here, but the end result is everything I hoped it would be.

The I used was Flaum by Justyna Lorkowska. I chose it for its draped front – a style I wear a lot, its seamless construction, its stretchy brioche and rib, and pockets! Beyond those elements, I made significant mods and used the pattern as a blank canvas for my own flights of yarn fancy. Here’s the project page on Ravelry.

The sizing choice was a tricky one for me. The sizes are based on bust measurements only, and although the pattern PDF gives some garment measurements it does not give suggested ease and there is no cross shoulder measurement. My bust measurement of 40″ puts me squarely as the L size, but I often find that raglans look saggy on my narrow back and shoulders. Additionally, the sample photos of this garment appeared to have extra bulk at the front underarm which I definitely wanted to eliminate. I followed the M size, gambling that the brioche would have enough stretch. Luckily it was the right choice because ripping fluffy yarn is no fun at all.

The garment construction is very interesting; a top-down raglan with stitches picked up from the neck band, as you can see above. From then on the neck band is integrated, with short-rows used to balance the difference in row tension between rib and brioche. I believe that my first mod was to reduce the width of the neck band to help it sit better on my shoulders (but I forgot to note that down). There are over 1000 projects for this pattern on Ravelry and it’s well worth having a look at other people’s mods if you’re considering it.

My other structural mods:

Lengthened the body 10cm. The result is not a long cardigan, but the sample garment is shown on a very petite model and I think as written it would be cropped on most people.

Lengthened the sleeves by around 15cm, making them bracelet length on me. I’ve got no time for elbow-length sleeves personally, my arms get cold.

I omitted the decreases along the length of the sleeve because they would have been way too tight over the elbow. When I got to the cuff I worked [k2, k2tog] all the way around to gather them in a bit (not shown in photo, it was a later decision). The sleeves are far from baggy even without the decreases [no, it’s not a magic loop tension thing, I’m just big around the elbow]. The ribbing is very forgiving.

The mods that I’m sure you’re most interested in are the colours.

When I cast on, I didn’t really have a plan other than that I wanted an ombra effect and some neon. I used a light-coloured shade of Favourite Sock (‘Frosted Sunrise‘) for the top part, then mid grey ‘Southbank‘, followed by ‘Black, Like My Soul‘ at the bottom. These shades were held together with Fuzzy Lace, for the most part in grey ‘Coal Dust’, but the rest was made up as I went along. The fluoro pink blocks and edges are ‘Be Safe, Be Seen‘, and the lighter pink band and intarsia panel are ‘Baby Cakes‘.

Even though it was my only active project and despite working on it almost every day, the cardigan took me an incomprehensible 5 months from start to finish. This is entirely down to brioche being an absolute slog, even making 1×1 rib seem speedy by comparison. It also burned through a lot of yarn. So much that I lost track, but I’m pretty sure I had to break into second skeins of the black and grey shades of Favourite Sock, and pulled rather more Fuzzy Lace from the stock cupboard than intended.

The finished garment is so light and warm. It works with both jeans & t shirt and dress & leggings combos I wear most often. Since most of my clothing either black and grey or bright, it pretty much goes with everything, while being totally unique. And it has pockets. What more could I want?

The shades we used for out Tregrensa Cowl sample are the one-off colours created for our 12 Days of Yarn-mas box. Although they were non-repeatable batches (we didn’t keep recipes), we fully intended to offer kits for the pattern after a little break. Having dyed, twisted and labelled close to 1000 mini-skeins in the lead up to the festive season, that break was much needed.

Our 12 Days of Yarn-mas set

Our Tregrensa Cowl sample using out 12 Days of Yarn-mas set

However, as is often the case, life didn’t exactly go to plan in January. Because of a health complication I have found myself away from the studio for the best part of four weeks. It has been tough but whenever things happen beyond my control I try to take something positive from it, and this time it’s been an opportunity to collaborate with some of my favourite dyers.

We’re heartbroken about the devastation in Australia, and when I mentioned the ideal of supporting the relief effort to the dyers, all three jumped on board. The cowl design celebrates the beauty of our European forests so it seemed fitting to use it to raise funds to protect and eventually restore precious woodlands in the southern hemisphere.

Each of the kits come with 12 hand-dyed sock-weight miniskeins, the PDF pattern and a £6 donation towards bush fire relief.

Let me tell your about them…

Hooking Marvellous

It’s been a pleasure to work Lynzi, and the delicate tones in the set she has put together for this set are magical.

Hooking Marvellous’ Tregrensa Miniskeins

I actually find soft tones a real challenge to dye, so I am tempted to order a set for myself! The cowl design is going to look stunning in these. Their kit is priced £40 + shipping.

Felt Fusion

Looking at Felt Fusion’s sunset minis pack below, I’m sure you can see why I knew that Felt Fusion would perfect to create a kit for Tregrensa.

Sunset mini skeins set by Felt Fusion

The colours they are creating for Tregrensa have not yet been revealed, but I think we can all agree, it’s in safe hands! If you like the aesthetic of the our original colour scheme, then I would wager that this Felt Fusion’s creation will be the closest. Their kit is priced £40 + shipping.

RiverKnits

RiverKnits Tregrensa kit

I’ve long been an admirer of RiverKnits yarns so I’m thrilled to be collaborating with them. RiverKnits stock British wool miniskeins in over 70 semi-solid colours, and have put together this set for us. You don’t even have to guess how our pattern will look in these shades because @loudelve is already knitting it. Their kit is priced £43 + shipping until 7 February.

I am really grateful to all three for so enthusiastically stepping in. The best part for me has been seeing different interpretations of the pattern, and I can’t wait to see the projects out in the wild.

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/kits-for-tregrensa-supporting-australia-bush-fire-relief/feed/012 Days of Yarn-mas unwrappedhttps://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/12-days-of-yarn-mas-unwrapped/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/12-days-of-yarn-mas-unwrapped/#respondFri, 31 Jan 2020 12:44:14 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5768Every year, in the throws of dyeing for our Yarn Advent Calendar it’s all too much, and I say to my self “I’m never dyeing another mini-skein”, but for the last two years I’ve ended up doing a ’12 days of Christmas’ box as well. As soon as the work is done and I see those beautiful minis all dried, twisted and lined up together, they just look so nice. I can’t help myself. This year, the spark of an idea that became the Tregrensa Cowl had already formed in my brain, and a Christmas box was simply too perfect an opportunity to make it happen.

Never mind that it was the busiest time of year, or that this was the first time I was also designing new patterns for the boxes myself, or that I would have to create the colours before finishing the pattern, and it was all a bit of a gamble. Challenge accepted. I would make it happen. And I did. (And then I collapsed in a heap).

In my last post , I shared with you images of the Scandinavian landscape that inspired the Tregrensa design. I thought it would be nice to include extra gifts that also have a Scandinavian theme and reminded me of my Nordic holidays. Fully aware that not everyone is as intrepid with colourwork as I am, it was important to me that the yarn worked as a whole without the pattern, and made the box was a joyful extension to the festive season for all who received it.

Day 1

‘Mørke Furutrær’ (dark pines)

Day 2

‘Grønne Furutrær’ (green pines)

Day 3

‘Fjellbeite’ (mountain pasture)

Day 4

‘Fjellmorene’ (mountain moraine)

Day 4’s parcel contains a mini bar of sea salt dark chocolate from SAW Chocolate. Salty liquorice sweets are very popular in northern Europe, but they’re definitely an acquired taste for those of us that haven’t grown up eating them! (I try them every time they’re offered in the hope that one day I’ll enjoy them – not so far.) You’ll thank us for offering a little hint of salty sweet flavour in delicious chocolate format, made by our local artisan chocolatier.

Day 5

‘Fjellrygg’ (mountain ridge)

Day 6

‘Fjelltopp’ (mountain top)

At this point, I was worried people would be disappointed that the colours were a little moody, and wondering “but, where’s the neon?”. Rest assured, it’s coming.

Day 7

‘Solstråle’ (sunbeam)

Day 8

‘Sol Glød’ (sun glow)

Day 8’s parcel contained a gin & tonic scented handmade soap from Bean & Boy. We chose this because juniper (what gives gin its unique flavour) is common throughout northern Europe and has many uses. For example, in Norway, beer is traditionally brewed from a juniper infusion rather than water!

Day 9

‘Soldans’ (sun dance)

We used washes of neon tones to create a sunset as striking as the real thing.

Day 10

‘Solnedgang’ (sunset)

Day 11

‘Plommehimmel’ (plum sky)

Day 12

‘Nattehimmel’ (night sky)

Of course there’s an extra treat for the final day, a handmade milk choc Biscoff and cinnamon bar from SAW. We chose this not just because cinnamon is so quintessentially Christmas-y, but because this combination of flavours reminds me of Pepperkaker. Pepperkaker are traditional Scandinavian Christmas biscuits that are a lot like our crisp gingerbread biscuits, but with the addition of black pepper!

And that’s a wrap! It’s hard to believe we’re already planning this year’s festive boxes, which we hope to announce in May.

This design represents many firsts for us. This is the first time we have created a pattern and a set of yarn specifically to accompany each other (in our 12 Days of Yarn-mas box). It’s our first figurative colourwork design, and the first time I, as a designer, have put quite so much of my soul into one pattern.

Incidentally, if you’re not yet a colourwork master, and you’re looking at this pattern thinking “whoa, that looks tricky”, let me reassure you that the yarn colours do much of the heavy lifting. Each stranded row is for two colours only, and the longest floats are seven stitches. If you have previously done any stranded colourwork, can knit in-the-round and follow charts, you can take this on and win.

Yarn set used for our Tregrensa sample, created for our ’12 Days of Yarn-mas’ box

If you’re a regular reader, it has probably not escaped your attention that I spend a lot of my holidays in Norway and Sweden. I am lucky enough to have close friends living in both countries, which has allowed me to see places others might not. This design isn’t a single place or moment, but an amalgamation of many treasured experiences.

Stranded colourwork has such strong associations with Northern Europe that it was the natural technique with which to capture the mountain landscape. This design pays homage to our favourite modern colourwork traditions, with our own contemporary twist of course.

Let’s start at the start.

On my first trip to Norway, I took the train from Oslo to Bergen in the middle of summer. The 6h journey took me from warm (actually 30°C in Oslo) sunshine, climbing 1200m to an inhospitable alpine plateau and back again, taking in fjords, waterfalls, glaciers, icy mountain lakes along the way. The ascent through lush green forests that gave way to sparse, ragged pines, then barren, snow-covered wilderness and rock is what inspired the lower part of the design, and also the name Tregrensa, which translates as ‘tree line’, the point in altitude above which trees cannot grow.

View from our cabin near Rjukan

A few years later, I joined friends in the mountains of Rjukan to celebrate new year. Aside for being famous for more interestingreasons, Rjukan is a ski destination. However, a 5-day blizzard left us mostly staring at outlines of straggly, dark pines from our cosy cabin. To me this was quite beautiful and exciting (less so for the skiers in the group), and imprinted the landscape in my mind.

The lower edge of the cowl represents the verdant forest retreating to singular trees as we head towards the mountains. Pine trees translate effortlessly to colourwork, and this style of colourwork is reminiscent of the scenes often figuratively depicted on Norwegian mittens in two shades (Skeindeer’s Julenatt is a beautiful modern example).

Near Rjukan, Norway

The way the hovering mists hang on the mountains and slopes blur into one another was something I wanted to capture in this design, and leads us to another Scandinavian knitting tradition.

Frafjord, Rogaland, Norway. Taken January 2011

The Bohus style originated in Sweden in the mid 20th century and is recognisable for its intricate colourwork in many shades and clever blending effects. I particularly love the Bohus ‘Palm’ and ‘Mist’ designs, which are characterised by their use of purl stitches to soften colour transitions.

Mittens worked using the ‘Red Palm’ design from the book ‘Knitting in the Bohus Tradition’

A few years ago I made myself a hat and gloves using the ‘Red Palm’ chart from the book ‘Knitting in the Bohus Tradition’. Although inspired by palm leaves, the abstract design had always reminded me of foggy mountains; the little purl stitches acting as the hovering mists on the mountainside, softening the jagged ridges.

I used this purl technique to blur the boundaries between our layers of mountains, and add a little texture to the rocky peaks.

As we climb towards the summit, our mountains take on a bluish tone. This is characteristic of the fjordlands in summer, where bands of mountains appear as blue silhouettes against a sky that looks like it’s on fire.

Cliffs above Lysefjord in Rogaland, Norway, taken around 2am in mid summer

Taken from my tent at night, in the same spot as above.

Sunlight from a firey sunset hitting the steep valley sides at Trodla-Tysdal, a remote farm and camping area in Rogaland, Norway

We used washes of neon tones in our yarn set to convey the intense light on the horizon, the sun disappearing behind the mountains and lighting up the sky with a fiery glow.

The colourwork tradition I referenced for this part of the design is barely a ‘tradition’ yet. Fade/gradient knitting has taken the knit world by storm in recent years, but it doesn’t show up often in stranded colourwork. Although traditional Fair Isle designs often have short gradient bands worked over a small number of rows, the earliest example of an extended colourwork fade that comes to mind is the Dither socks by General Hogbuffer, published 2011. These snazzy socks use GIF style halftone patterns to transition between colours.

Tregrensa’s sky uses little bars, reminiscent of wispy clouds, to transition between the six shades of our skyscape, taking us into starlit nighttime.

The edges of our cowl feature corrugated rib – a simple technique for a non-rolling edge, with the knits and purls worked in different colours. We’re not sure of the origins of corrugated rib, but it can be spotted on Fair Isle sweaters of the 1920s, including the one sported by the then Prince of Wales, which propelled Fair Isle knitwear into fashion.

Prince of Wales By John St Helier Lander, painting, 1925, Public Domain. The painting shows the Prince of Wales in a Fair Isle sweater with corrugated rib edging.

The bobbles? They’re our own contemporary addition.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey through our creative process.

The Tregrensa PDF pattern is available now for $6 from our website and Ravelry.

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/our-projects/introducing-the-tregrensa-cowl/feed/0Our 2019 Yarn Advent Calendar unwrappedhttps://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/our-2019-yarn-advent-calendar-unwrapped/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/our-2019-yarn-advent-calendar-unwrapped/#respondMon, 20 Jan 2020 15:49:04 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5736Every year our Yarn Advent Calendar is one of the biggest projects we take on, and this year was no exception. The box included 24 limited new, edition shades of Favourite Sock minis and extra gifts individually wrapped in daily parcels. Many of the extras were created exclusively for the box, locally sourced and supported other artisan small businesses. We also made a special effort this year to reduce plastic and choose items with a minimal environmental footprint.

This year’s yarn shades focused on semi-solids, with the intention of creating a set that could be used together in lots of different ways – for colourwork, mini fades or contrast sets. The shades included neutrals, darks, earth tones, brights, pastels and of course a little bit of neon!

Day 1

Black Forest

This was a brand new pattern, released 1 December to accompany the box. The trend for advent patterns is normally for shawls. There are so many beautiful shawl patterns out there already, and many customers tell us that they have more than enough shawls, so we wanted to do something a bit different!

This is the first time we have designed a pattern especially for miniskeins, and this is a project you can really make your own with your choice of colour combinations, using as few as two and as many as 11 colours. We’ll be telling you a bit more about it and the inspiration for the design very soon.

Day 2

Lily Pond

Day 3

Verdant

Day 4

Tresco

Day 4 includes a knitting notebook and traditionally stamped pencils set, designed by us especially for the box.

The book has a combination of lined and squared pages, for notes, sketching lace charts and planning colourwork palettes. Inside the back cover we’ve included hand metric and imperial rulers and a chart symbols cheat sheet. It is decorated throughout with beautiful vintage illustrations. We still have some in case you missed out! We have a small number of book and pencils sets, and also the book on its own.

Day 5

Mariner

Day 6

Bubble

Day 6’s extra is a set of woven cotton labels.

We love using sew-in woven labels give our handmade garments a professional touch. So often they are made from plastic fibres, but we were so happy to be able to commission these in OEKO-TEX 100 100% Egyptian cotton. The set included two designs that inject a little humour (they read “This is the back” and “Yes, I really made it”). We have a few left in our shop.

Day 7

Regalia

Day 8

Bubblegum

Day 8’s shade comes with a coordinating stitch marker made for us by The Woolly Dodo.

This is the second year that talented owner Dominique has custom-made stitch markers for our advent box, and we love that they’re growing into a set.

Day 8

Stargazer

Day 10

Aperol Spritz

Day 11

Damson

What better to accompany this delicious shade than a Berries and Cherries mini bar from SAW Chocolate.

SAW is an artisan chocolate maker that we’re incredibly lucky to have in our Walthamstow neighbourhood.

Day 12

Limoncello

Day 13

Flambé

Day 14

Absinthe Suissesse

Day 14 comes with a set of wooden snowflake decorations.

We love the simplicity of these laser cut snowflakes made from natural wood ply. Unlike so many festive decorations, they are low impact and biodegradable.

Day 15

Blue Martini

Day 16

Faded Neon

Day 17

Twilight Smog

Twool is a marvellous woolly alternative twine that’s durable, biodegradable and made from a rare breed British fleece. The colours are so pretty, your garden might not get a look in!

Day 18

Amaryllis

Day 19

Straw

Day 20

Copperbeach

Day 20 has a Christmas mini bar from SAW Chocolate.

This flavour is packed with tasty festive cheer, with figs, cranberries, Brazil nuts and spices. I wish I could eat them all year round!

Day 21

Fall

Day 22

Muddle

These paper snowflake decorations are so elegant and beautiful, we’ve included them for the second year running.

Day 23

Chutney

Day 24

Lure

Our final gift is a lemongrass and poppyseed handmade soap from Bean & Boy.

Based in nearby Southend, we love this company not just for their award-winning combinations of natural ingredients, but their plastic-free packaging.

That’s all for another year! Which was your favourite?

We hope to announce our 2020 Advent box in late spring, when we will begin taking pre-orders.

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/our-2019-yarn-advent-calendar-unwrapped/feed/0Yarn suggestions for the Westknits Starflake Mystery Shawl KAL 2019https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/yarn-suggestions-for-the-westknits-starflake-mystery-shawl-kal-2019/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/yarn-suggestions-for-the-westknits-starflake-mystery-shawl-kal-2019/#respondMon, 09 Sep 2019 10:09:18 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5610There’s a new Stephen West shawl MKAL on the horizon! Several of you have asked us our shade recommendations for Starflake MKAL and we’re happy to oblige! We thoroughly enjoyed ‘The Doodler’ in 2015 but have not got our act together to take part in the last few, and I suspect that this year we’ll be enjoying it vicariously through your projects once again. The shawl is for a 4 ply /fingering weight yarn in two colours (two skeins of each). Here is Mr West’s guidance on the colour choices:

I designed this year’s shawl to feature two colors for a high contrast graphic design. I recommend choosing two colors that have a high contrast to see the crisp lines and details of the shawl. The shawl will be equally beautiful with a lower contrast if you prefer a softer, more subtle effect. Use solid, semi-solid, or lightly speckled yarns. I would avoid heavily speckled or variegated yarns for this design as they may obscure the design details.

Our deep purple ‘Dancing in the Dark’ has been a very popular option, so much so that it’s sold out (Edit: It’s back in stock!). We’re hoping to get a new batch done in the next week or so, but in the mean time we have a beautiful new dark blue shade – ‘Inky‘ – from our Watercolour Collection that would work very well. We’ve put together a few suggestions using this shade and some of our other favourites. At the time of writing we have stock of all of them.

Night and day

Favourite Sock pure merino 4 ply in ‘Inky‘ and ‘Sunset Beach‘ – this combination actually happened by accident when both colours landed on the twisting pile. It was too good not to capture!

Stand out

Sea and rock

Purple sophistication

If you had your heart set on ‘Dancing in the Dark’, what about ‘Brixton Purple‘? It’s a cool toned dark purple designed to harmonise with ‘Dirty Lilac‘. This combo is more subtle, but should still give you the contrast you need to make the pattern work.

Harvest hues

‘Beachcombing ‘ and ‘Colonel Mustard ‘ are a warm yet earthy pair.

Colour contrast

When we put these two on the photography table, there was a ‘WOW’ moment. These complimentary colours really make each other pop! ‘Spirulina‘ and ‘Momiji‘.

Alternative Autumn

Rainbow bright

While the designer warns against variegated shades, there’s such a strong contrast between ‘Glow Sticks‘ and ‘Black, Like My Soul‘ that we think they’ll work beautifully.

We’re always happy to help if you’re having a colour quandary! And we can’t wait to see the combinations you come up with for the MKAL (which is the best part of the surprise for us). The Starflake MKAL kicks off on 4 October. Needles at the ready!

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/yarn-suggestions-for-the-westknits-starflake-mystery-shawl-kal-2019/feed/0Together we raised over £275 for Refugee Support!https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/we-raised-over-275-for-refugee-support/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/we-raised-over-275-for-refugee-support/#respondTue, 03 Sep 2019 14:04:24 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5600
A heartfelt thank you for all your donations and orders supporting our August fundraiser for Refugee Support. We smashed our target, raising over £275!

With a flurry of orders at the end of the month, we’ve decided to keep donations open for a week or two to give everyone the opportunity to contribute. Because Refugee Support is a volunteer led organisation, every penny goes direct to helping the people that need it most and even the smallest of donations helps.

Thank you, truly! To you for this beautiful initiative and to all the supporters who make it possible for us to continue doing our work.

We chose this charity because of their “aid with dignity” mission to helping some of the most vulnerable and marginalised people on our continent. Read more about why we decided to help.

Earlier this month we wrote about one of the projects that particularly resonated with us, the sewing room at their centre in Nicosia, Cyprus. We thought you’d like to see their latest post showing the amazing things that are coming our of the sewing room:

We are so thrilled to be helping to fund this and Refugee Support’s other initiatives, and have had such a great response sharing their stories and projects. We’ll be continuing to support the organisation and promoting their work.

If you’ve been inspired by what you’ve read and would like to do more, maybe you can! Refugee Support are currently recruiting volunteers for their new centre in Cyprus, and creative/making skills are very much needed. If you’re in a position to take a couple of weeks away it could be an incredible experience.

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/pattern-release-fluro-sox-by-anneknitty/feed/0The Sewing Room at Refugee Support’s centre in Cyprushttps://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/the-sewing-room-at-refugee-supports-centre-in-cyprus/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/the-sewing-room-at-refugee-supports-centre-in-cyprus/#respondMon, 12 Aug 2019 15:52:57 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5567This month we’re raising money for Refugee Support (read more about our fundraiser in our previous post), and I want to share with you one of the charity’s most recent projects that is particularly close to my heart (and I’m sure yours too).

The sewing room at Refugee Support’s Dignity Centre Nicosia, Cyprus, opened just a couple of months ago. With the expert help of master tailor Thierno Ba, people using the centre have an opportunity to be more self-sufficient. Here they can learn basic mending and making of their clothes, through to earning money for goods they make.

Not only does the sewing room offer new skills and a potential source of income, but also a sense of normality. It’s a creative, relaxed and social space. It’s just one of many ways that Refugee Support offers aid with dignity.

There are around 15,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers and estimated 5,000 more undocumented in the small island nation of Cyprus alone, many of whom struggle to survive. While our eyes turn to the harrowing reports from the US border, it’s easy to forget the scale of the humanitarian crisis right here in Europe.

You can help! Donate to Refugee Support directly using the link to our Facebook fundraiser below, or through any purchase of our Favourite Sock Minis yarn (we donating £1 for every mini-skein sold).

As we wrote in our post about racism last month, we wanted to do something to provide tangible support people that experience discrimination, and refugees are probably the most marginalised people on the planet. They are excluded from society by physical barriers and (should they have the opportunity to start a new life elsewhere) by systematic racism, aggressively fuelled by political scapegoating.

At present, all eyes are on the dehumanising and dangerous conditions in US border camps, and rightly so. However, there’s a risk that we overlook the enormous humanitarian crisis on our continent. That is why we’re supporting a European refugee charity.

I have chosen the charity Refugee Support because of their “aid with dignity” mission and because they channel every penny donated straight to refugees. How do I know? Thanks to my wonderful friend Natalie Homes, who worked as a volunteer for the organisation, running their onsite operations at the Katsikas camp in Greece.

The charity delivers food and other aid to people trapped in camps in ways that help them regain a sense of control over their lives. For example, providing groceries and donated clothing in a shop format enables a level of normality and begins to address the power imbalance of the aid transaction. Read more about this fantastic work in Natalie’s article Humanizing Aid for Bright magazine and her Volunteer Story on Refugee Support’s website.

You can support our fundraiser through purchases of Favourite Sock Minis. Alternatively, you can make a direct donation through our Facebook Page (all money goes directly to the charity, Facebook do not take a percentage).

Our most popular knitting pattern is the Staggered Rib Scarf, with over 1000 projects on Ravelry!

The most popular page on our website is our tutorial for natural dyeing with onion skins

Since self-publishing our Little Book of Yarn Dyeing in summer 2017, we’ve launched almost 500 new dyers into the world!

750000 of you have visited our website, and we’ve reached many people more through Ravelry, Etsy and Instagram

Thank you for helping us achieve all these things!

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/we-are-10/feed/0Join our new destash grouphttps://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/join-our-new-destash-group/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/join-our-new-destash-group/#respondSat, 13 Jul 2019 11:00:17 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5531We have created a new Facebook group for buying and selling It’s a Stitch Up destash yarn! Do you have a shade you’ve fallen out of love with or leftovers from a project? Or maybe you lost at yarn chicken and need a few extra meters? Join the group and we’ll help!

We’ll also be using the group to list our misfit skeins and end-of-batch discounts from now on.

A destash group might seem like a strange decision for a yarn company, but we hate the idea of our yarn languishing in stashes unused, and this felt like a great way to help find it a new home.

We were inspired not only by our LYS, Wild and Woolly’s Stash Depot initiative (read about it in our interview with the owner) but also one of our favourite ethical clothing brands, Phannatiq, that also has a Facebook group where customers can buy and sell pre-owned pieces.

Unwanted materials in our stash can make us feel demotivated or even be a source of guilt, but they might be perfect for another maker’s project. It’s an opportunity to make room for materials that really inspire you, or to find them on a budget! In addition, Initiatives like this support the circular economy, bringing unused materials back into circulation and helping all of us to reduce our environmental impact, which is key to our business ethos. It’s a win-win!

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/studio-news/join-our-new-destash-group/feed/0One pattern, three garments, and a whole lot of lessonshttps://itsastitchup.co.uk/our-projects/one-pattern-three-garments-and-a-whole-lot-of-lessons/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/our-projects/one-pattern-three-garments-and-a-whole-lot-of-lessons/#respondThu, 11 Jul 2019 14:52:27 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5516Last year, after realising that most of the items in my wardrobe weren’t working for me and my postpartum body, I embarked on a mission to fill in the gaps with me-made pieces.

It was not just my body shape that had changed, but also my lifestyle. I no longer work in offices and rarely have a requirement to look smart or formal. I don’t get to socialise a whole lot. I don’t have time to iron ever, but I do get covered in toddler gunk constantly.

The commercial sewing patterns market seems dominated by statement pieces, occasion wear, fitted silhouettes and details like peplums and ruffles – the opposite of what I need. I am aware that I could draft myself some basics, but I’m also quite limited in the time I have available for sewing. I get 30 minutes here and there, usually when I’m tired and don’t really want to think too hard.

What I like about this – it works at different lengths; with three sleeve options it could carry through different seasons; it’s roomy around the bust and tummy; as a pattern from the ‘Learn to Sew’ range, it should be pretty mindless sewing. I liked the look of the sample so much, I bought some animal print fabric for my first attempt.

Around the time when I hoped to start the project, I came down with a virus and had to take a couple of weeks away from the studio. This turned out to be quite beneficial for my sewing, however, because I spent the time following sewing courses on Bluprint (formerly Craftsy). Particularly helpful was Jenny Rushmore’s class Full Bust Adjustment for Any Pattern.

Last year, when I made the similarly pleated thunder storm top, I did not adjust it and have not been entirely happy with the fit. Although this pattern has a large amount of ease in the bust, and would probably be wearable without a full bust adjustment (FBA), having done the class it seemed like an excellent opportunity to try those techniques out. Doing the FBA enabled me to make a smaller size, better fitting my shoulders. Given the pattern already had a few inches of ease, I decided that adding 2.5cm/an inch each side would be enough just to give it a better shape (my calculations suggest I’d have needed as much as 8-10cm for a fitted garment). I made a toile in muslin to check the fit, I also added a little bit of length distributed in the bodice and hip area, and about 10cm/4″ to the hem. Full details are on my Textillia project page.

The FBA was pretty successful apart from a little error with the side seams. However, I was so disappointed with the back of the dress, which gaped enormously. It has since settled a bit after a few washes and hangs a bit better, but looks better with a belt. I was pleased that despite the FBA and lengthening, I got the dress out of a 1.5m piece of fabric (the pattern called for 2.2m).

Did I give up and move on? Of course not. I could see the potential, so I went back for another go. This time a top in the most expensive and treasured fabric in my stash, Liberty Silk Satin. Silk might seem like a strange choice given the requirements I stated above, but I actually find silk to be practical for everyday wear. I machine wash it on a delicates programme, and it keeps its shape well without ironing and doesn’t show much wear. It’s also very comfortable.

The fabric is a beautiful Art Nouveau inspired design with poppy flowers, bought to make myself a dress for a friends wedding. It did not get used because I was too burnt out after making the wedding dress! Although the fabric is precious, there was no point in it sitting unused in my stash forever, and I had nothing else in mind for it.

To address the gaping back from #1, I decided to remove four of the six back pleats. I lengthened the yoke by 5mm, just for a little extra room. I raised the dart from my previous version because after extending the yoke, it sat a little low. A toile and a complete pattern redraft later (so much for mindless sewing) I had a new pattern. See project page for full details and mods.

The rest should have been easy, but everything that could have gone wrong did. Firstly, this was my inaugural garment in a large repeat print. Although I had 1.5m of fabric (the same amount I used for an entire dress in the animal print), I ran out and had to put a join in the back yoke. Then there was the fabric itself. I’ve worked with silk a lot, but silk satin was a different matter. The drape behaves nothing like the muslin I used for my toile, flaring out on the bias, which is evident on the sleeves. I tried sleeve facings instead of hems, but that looked even worse. I unpicked them twice and ended up finishing them with bias tape I made (another first for me) from lighter weight silk, but they still don’t look great. Lastly, I messed up the side seams yet again. This time they were even more mismatched than on the first effort.

Like many makers, I feel compelled to point out my mistakes, but no one would be able to tell any of this from the garment. It’s acceptable as a nice summer top. The pain was mostly in its making, although the sleeves do still annoy me and it’s still a little too baggy at the back. I am pleased to have finally used this special fabric and accept that it would have been challenging to work with whatever I had made with it.

At this point, most people would have moved on and put the pattern back on the shelf, but not me. I was determined not to be beaten, so I went back for round three.

This time, I had in mind a piece of fabric given to me by my sewing friend Jessica. We both find ourselves with a garment’s worth of leftover fabric after a project, but don’t really want another item in the same print in our wardrobe, so we swap. It’s a good system – nice pieces don’t go to waste. This piece was black and white stripe stretch viscose jersey. ‘Lightweight jersey’ was one of the fabric suggestions for the pattern, and I find myself wearing jersey dresses most of the time, so why not? I also thought that the shape might work well as more of a t-shirt dress, with a ribbed neckband and cuffs.

I redrafted the pattern one more time. I finally managed to draw the side seams right, and I did a better job of removing the back pleats. Pleats are not the same as darts – in this case, the pleat apex was somewhere around the high hip, and not the mid-back as I’d factored by extending the pleat lines. Correcting this mistake from my previous draft removed the excess fabric I had around the back waist in #2. I also made a small adjustment to the shoulder slope in an attempt to correct the flaring sleeves. Full details are on the project page. I made a final toile, and everything looked spot on. What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot!

I can hardly believe it, but I ran out of fabric once again, making the rookie error of checking it in the wrong orientation! I only realised after I had finished cutting the front that I did not have enough for the back. I got the details of the original fabric from Jessica but found that it had been discontinued. Even though the fabric looks quite generic, it was not easy to find a substitute. I searched, waited for samples, rejected them, ordered more samples and finally found a non-stretch viscose jersey with the same width stripes, and decided this was close enough. I am happy to report that you can’t tell the difference now that it’s finished.

Most of the construction went off without a hitch on the overlocker, but there were a couple of mishaps. I added transparent elastic to the shoulders to prevent stretching, but it bunched, and I had to cut it out. After adding the neck ribbing I realised that that was probably going to stretch over time, so I sewed some stay tape sewn just inside the seam allowance. I did not consider the placement of the stripes and got a distracting narrow strip of black where the yoke joins the body. I had to unpick this and tuck it in, negating the length adjustment I’d made to the yoke. In doing this, I damaged the fabric (viscose jersey seems a bit delicate) and had to do an invisible repair with fine thread and iron-on interfacing.

I didn’t quite match the stripes on one of the shoulders but the other looks so good I can overlook it.

But the biggest issue is that it’s really large. I did not account for the stretch in jersey, and I could have gone one or even two sizes smaller than with woven fabric. Obviously, making a toile in a knit fabric would have highlighted this earlier, but I did not have any knit fabric I would be willing to sacrifice.

Despite the flaws, I absolutely love this dress. The ribbing gives it a sharp, professional finish. With hindsight, I could have done without the front darts and managed the FBA using the existing pleats, but it fits very well and is so easy to wear.

I have learned a huge about working stripes and patterns (I tend to choose plains or abstract prints that don’t need matching) and challenging fabrics. This is the first time I have drafted anything with pleats, and I now have a basic understanding of them. I also feel very confident about tackling an FBA, and will do so without hesitation on every bodice from now on – down with poorly fitting tops! I also have three new garments in regular rotation, and although they follow the same pattern, I don’t feel at all like I am wearing the same thing. Despite their flaws, I like them more than most of the items in my wardrobe.

I put in a lot more work than I ever intended, or that the pattern justifies, and I should really draw a line under it now. Call me foolish, but I am now contemplating a fourth, maybe a top in Tencel denim…?

In case you missed it, this week, Ravelry made the decision to ban support for the current US administration (I’m not giving airtime to anyone’s name, and it is bigger than one person anyway) because of its promotion of white supremacy. Ravelry have never shied away from decisive action when it comes to bigotry, having shut down a right-wing group on the platform a few years ago after it descended into hate speech. Ravelry actively support diversity within the knitting community, and have been central in hosting and responding to the discussions about racism within our community that began to reverberate at the start of this year. What’s different about this decision is that the new has spread far beyond the knitting community, being reported mainstream global media, including BBC and The Guardian here in the UK.

The headlines are (of course) a little sensationalist, and may not communicate the subtle distinction that Ravelry has banned open support for, not supporters of the US administration. It is not a ban on Republican political views. They also neglect to report the incident that prompted the decision. An American designer (a person of colour) was subjected to a campaign of abuse and harassment they spoke out about an offensive slogan on a pattern published on the platform. This attack was led by the designer of the offensive pattern (now banned from the platform).

Racism and white supremacy where what prompted Ravelry’s decision and have been the focus of discussions around inclusivity but, at the same time, other marginalised groups have been speaking out about the discrimination they’ve experienced in our community – homophobia, transphobia, ableism and size exclusion – covert, overt and systematic.

We support Ravelry in its action. More importantly, we support the marginalised people within our community and we pledge to take up this fight in our own spaces.

We want you to feel safe and welcome regardless of your ethnicity, heritage, gender, (dis)ability, sexual orientation, body shape or other marginalised identity.

Prompted by these events, we have created a Code of Conduct outlining the behaviour we expect in our online spaces and at our events, and how to report anything problematic.

We will not tolerate degrading comments about race, religion, heritage, sexual orientation, gender identity, body shape/size or other aspects of identity. We will not tolerate comments supporting white supremacy. We will not tolerate anything else that makes members of our community feel unwelcome or unsafe.

Why is this necessary?

I used to think that it was enough to simply not be racist, to treat everyone as equals and to be a good person. I used to think that statements like the one above were preformative or even self-serving. I also felt that as the owner of a tiny business with a very modest following, I would not have influence and there was nothing that my voice would add.

Then I learned.

I learned the extent of and the damage that racism and other kinds of discrimination are doing in our community because brave people spoke up about their experiences. (My friends often talk to me about their experiences of racism in the wider world, so I don’t know why this came as a surprise to me, it was and I’m sorry for that.)

I learned that regardless of how non-racist I am, as I white person I am a beneficiary of racism. I recognised the privilege of never having to worry about losing customers if I share a photo showing my skin colour, or because I have a foreign-sounding name. When I walk into a yarn shop, I can expect to be given appropriate assistance, and not simply directed towards ‘the cheap stuff’ because of my race.

I learned that racism has a ‘safe space’ when the majority stay silent, and that we only begin to tackle it when we (privileged folks) acknowledge it and speak up.

I learned that safe and welcoming spaces don’t happen by chance, are not the default for everyone. How will marginalised people know they are welcome unless we make that clear? And say it loudly, unambiguously and often.

Our priority is to make sure that our online spaces and at our events are inclusive, safe and welcoming for everyone.

To date, we have not had to deal with problematic behaviour within our spaces (other than the continuous torrent of spam and one bizarre incident where someone took issue with my appearance). Although we would have never permitted hate speech of any kind, we had no formal policy in place to help everyone feel safe and to clarify what you can expect from us and other members of our community. It surprised me 25 of our Instagram followers left after we declared we would not tolerate hate speech or white supremacy, which demonstrates how necessary it was.

I want to think that it’s unlikely that anyone in our audience would respond defensively; that privileged folks are already following the discussions around inclusivity and have begin to unpick their own assumptions and unconscious bias. However, not everyone uses social media or is able to follow the real-time conversations that began and continue on Instagram stories (for a start, the medium is not accessible for people using assistive technologies), and it is unfair to assume everyone is aware of everything that’s happened and every nuance.

Regardless of how much you have been able to follow or engage with discussions so far, it is fair to assume that you want to do the right thing.

Whenever we discuss diversity (and lack of) in the knitting community, particularly when we discuss racism, the same responses come up time and time again in an attempt to shut down the conversion. Sometimes this is well-intentioned but the end result is the same as if it were a function of racist intent – to suppress the voices of marginalised people and perpetuate the problem.

If you are a white, heterosexual, cis, able-bodied person and you don’t accept that you are privileged, or if our statements leave you feeling uncomfortable or defensive, I ask that you read this post explaining privilege before responding.

In the unlikely event that you still feel the urge to launch into a “But… what about me?” kind of statement, or more likely, you see one out in the wild, I’ve responded to these below.

But I want to keep politics out of my hobby / Can’t we get back to knitting? / Can’t we all just be nice to each other?

You don’t want knitting to be political? We’re sorry to break it to you but knitting was already political. The act of making your own clothes is political. Choosing to buy yarn from an independent dyer is a political statement, a rejection of capitalism at least on some level.

Oh… it’s the other kind of politics you don’t want here. You should probably take that up with the people who brought prejudice and discrimination into our community. These conversations began because some people weren’t being nice. Asking others to remain silent is being complicit, encouraging that toxic behaviour to continue.

But I’m not in the US / I don’t use Ravelry. What does this have to do with me?

This is not about one head of state. This is not about one website.

Although in the UK we have a very different racial and political backdrop to the US, the politics of fear and division have become part of the daily news cycle here too. We’ve seen a huge increase in Islamophobia, xenophobia and transphobia and people who previously felt at home have now been made to feel unsafe and unwelcome.

In 2015, British politician Jo Cox was murdered by a neo-nazi because of her open support of multiculturalism. We rarely call our own nationalist extremism ‘white supremacy’ because that’s the preserve of sinister cults in white sheets, right? Nope. White supremacy has found a home on our shores. This is our problem too.

This is about standing up for the marginalised people within our community, and this applies anywhere.

But what about my freedom of speech?

Free speech doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it means. Here in the UK ‘free speech’ is subject to libel laws, the Official Secrets Act, data protection and privacy laws, and sever criminal statutes covering hate speech and harassment. The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights was amended in 1976 to state that the rights of Freedom of Speech are accompanied by “special duties and responsibilities” and may “subject to certain restrictions…[f]or respect of the rights or reputation of others” or “[f]or the protection of national security or of public order (order public), or of public health or morals”. Freedom of Speech is intended to protect folks criticising the government (i.e. exactly what Ravelry is doing). Freedom of speech is doesn’t exempt you from the consequences of expressing your views. These might include be anything from people disliking you and not wanting to hang out with you anymore, to being banned from a platform or even being prosecuted. Everyone can stand on a street corner and exercise their free speech (within the above caveats) but no one has to stop and listen, provide a soapbox, megaphone, or an online platform for that matter – they are free to start their own.

Our next steps

We are continuing to refine our Code of Conduct (it is still a little rough around the edges), and are in the process of making sure it is visible and linked from everywhere it needs to be. We welcome feedback on its content and implementation.

We are learning too. When I started blogging here just over 10 years ago, my understanding of social justice and privilege was limited and I had never heard of microaggressions or ableism, for example. In light of this, we need to take a hard look at our past use content.

We also want to go beyond words, and our own small bubble, and do something more tangible to support marginalised people. There is just so much awful stuff happening, both in the UK and further afield, that it’s difficult to know where to begin. It’s likely we will support Refugee Support EU and RAICES.

If you are a person with a following in the knitting community (however small) and it’s safe for you to do so, I hope you will consider how you can support marginalised people in our community. The graphic above and my words are free for you to use yourself if that is helpful (no credit required). I have deliberately not linked to any BIPOC/BAME or LGBTQ+ folks because of the large amount of hatred may of them have been subjected to for speaking out, and I ask you to do the same (unless you have their permission).

As always, comments are moderated.

]]>https://itsastitchup.co.uk/ethics-sustainability/we-support-ravelry/feed/0Eco-conscious yarn on a budget part 2: The businesses giving new life to unwanted materialshttps://itsastitchup.co.uk/ethics-sustainability/eco-conscious-yarn-on-a-budget-part-2-the-businesses-giving-new-life-to-unwanted-materials/
https://itsastitchup.co.uk/ethics-sustainability/eco-conscious-yarn-on-a-budget-part-2-the-businesses-giving-new-life-to-unwanted-materials/#respondMon, 24 Jun 2019 10:42:20 +0000http://itsastitchup.co.uk/?p=5434We talk to two innovative small business owners, Anna Feldman of Wild and Woolly and Simona Marian-Maloney of Recycled Yarn Co. about their very different eco-conscious yarn initiatives.

This is the second in a series exploring the sometimes difficult relationship between cost and sustainability of the materials we use. In Part 1 we looked at budget synthetic yarns and asked if they really offer value for money. I want to thank everyone who commented, shared the article and messaged to discuss it further. There is so much to talk about! It was reassuring that collectively as makers, we share a sense of urgency about reducing plastic consumption and minimising our environmental impact, and this is true right across the spectrum of financial means. At the same time, the need for knitting to be financially accessible to everyone is clear, and I feel that I understated this. It is not just about the value of the finished object – the escapism and sense of achievement that a few stitches can provide are all the more precious to the people that have the least. I want to give a special thank you to the thoughtful human that reminded me of this by privately sharing their own experience.

Mass-market sustainable yarn options are more expensive than budget yarns, putting them out of reach of some makers. So, if we are to ween ourselves off synthetics, we need alternative sources of low-cost yarn. Our first interviewee has created just that.

The Stash Depot is the brainchild of LYS owner Anna Feldman, giving customers to her East London shop, Wild and Woolly, the opportunity to buy and sell destash yarn without the hassle. [Regular readers may recall that I am myself a user of this service]. I met up with Anna at her beautiful shop to find out more about the initiative over a cup of tea.

While most local yarn stores have a strong community focus, they’re dedicated to conventional yarn retail. What gave you the idea to set up The Stash Depot?

“The idea came from being a wool shop customer, before being a proprietor. As a knitter, I was aware that knitters often buy more than we can knit with (our eyes are bigger than our tummy!). Over time, it can lose its allure, our taste moves on and we get excited about other things. A stash can become a source of guilt that can stop you knitting because you don’t want to use it, but you feel bad about buying anything new.

“When kids were little, we shopped at a children’s shop where you could bring clothes your children had grown out of and they would put them on sale. They were labelled with a number for each customer, and you got credit based on what had sold. The shop took their cut too. They gave you a membership card and you could buy new clothes with your credit. Everything was washed and iron and they took care to present things well – it didn’t have a charity shop feel. I thought this was a great model for circulating wool that people had accumulated in their stash.

“I was also thinking about what was missing in wool shops. I was often disappointed about shops I visited and felt that knitting spaces can tend towards cliquiness – not everyone feels included. I thought ‘if I had a wool shop, people could get rid of their stash and made to feel welcome’. When I opened the wool shop decided to do it.

“I had fears about how selling cheap wool would fit in. I had contradictory goals; to sell really nice wool in natural fibres only, and for the shop to be welcoming to everyone. I wanted that when people walked in they could find something suitable for their project regardless of their income level. A key area of inclusivity is not just about being friendly, it’s filling that missing gap. I’ve done my best to fill a price range of yarns – from about £3.50 a ball – but the Stash Depot yarn is £2/ball and often there are real gems.

“Making is often about being rough and ready, e.g. making pompoms with kids, and it’s nice to have cheap yarn for times when retail yarn would not be appropriate for a project. The Stash Depot compliments what’s in the rest of the shop.

“I expected that the Stash Depot would be full of single skeins, but often it’s full of sweater quantities. Stash Depot shoppers come back very quickly with an FO, and it’s great because the yarn probably sat unused in a stash for many years, and suddenly it’s transformed and created a world of joy. The customer has had a great experience, it’s cost them under £20 and the seller now has some credit to spend in the store.

“In the old shop [before refurbishing earlier this year] it was a challenge because the Stash was a diverse bundle of yarn that looked messy. In the new shop, it’s in specially designed crates on wheels. There is a good balance between people dropping off and buying and it turns over regularly.

“The environmental aspect is also important. As a shopkeeper, I’m aware I’m peddling consumption, and I’m keen to encourage people to only buy what they will use, but it’s inevitable that people buy more than they need. The Stash Depot gives a nice feeling of balance and helps address that problem. It is a good model of sustainability.”

How does it work?

“There are a few constraints on what is accepted; must be full balls, labels preferred, new and unused only. The seller (or ‘dealer’) fills in a form and agrees for it to be thrown away if there are any bugs (and I often microwave it to be sure). They are assigned a number, which goes on the wool on a sticker. Every time it sells it is registered and the dealer gets £1 credit per ball, with the shop also taking £1. The dealer can come in any time and check their credit. Credit can be used against a new purchase. Occasionally dealers ask that the money is given to charity.

“Dealers get less money this way than selling it on eBay, but that advantage is that it takes no effort.”

What’s the fanciest yarn that anyone has destashed with you?

“We’ve had some pure cashmere, but the most unusual was Mission Falls, a luxury Canadian brand which is no longer in business.”

Do you think it’s right for us as makers to expect cheap yarn?

“It’s a really difficult issue. The makers I know around here are really struggling to make a living and they do it because they have integrity and belief in what they do. They struggle to charge a price that reflects the work they do. You want to plead with people that buy it to pay properly for that work. On the other hand, the more expensive our materials become the less accessible it is. As a shopkeeper, I would much rather people bought less and only bought what they need, what they’re going to use, and bought materials of more value.

“It would be interesting to look at the consumption habits of people that complain about price [of goods in general] and look at how much they’ve bought and consumed. If they had spent the same amount on less, it would be interesting to see if makers had been able to be paid fairly.

“There’s a big debate about pattern pricing. Often patterns are cheaper even than the needles. I think knitting should be accessible but I think the real question is how much people are consuming vs how much they are making and whether and that’s what we should be thinking about. I am a believer in people being paid properly for what we do. In our capitalist society the way we show the value of people’s work is by paying for it. Mass produced yarn comes at an enormous price.”

As a user of The Stash Depot, I think it’s fantastic. I am always so happy to discover that my unwanted yarn has found a new home and, earned me some credit towards a new book or set of needles and supported a wonderful local business. It is so encouraging to hear that it’s also proven to have been a good business model and I hope others follow suit.

Our second interview is with Simona Marian-Maloney, proprietor of Recycled Yarn Co. based in Carrollton, Ohio in the United States. I think I first discovered Recycled Yarn Co. browsing on Etsy, and I was immediately fascinated and thrilled to find a small business specialising in reclaimed yarn. Simona started recycling thrift store and garage sale garments as an affordable way to get quality yarn to use for her own knitting projects. What started as a hobby has grown into a business, and Simona now regularly vends at yarn shows as well as selling online through her Etsy store.

I spoke to Simona via email to find out more, and she shared some wonderful insights into yarn recycling and her business.

“I am a first generation immigrant from Romania. My mom always recycled our clothes. From her hand-knit sweater, she made me a sweater and then my sweater got turned into a vest for my brother. When my children were younger, money was tight then, but I still loved luxury and I know quality. I started to go to thrift stores and so I discovered sweaters made from cashmere, pure silk, fine Merino wool, linen. I love natural fiber and I started to unravel and reknit from it. All the garments got washed as soon as I got home because I didn’t know who had them, or where they come from.

“At first, I used the yarn right as I unraveled it, but as time went I progressed and straightened the yarn with my steamer. It took out the kinks. Knitting friends commented on my garments and yarn and suggested that I should put the yarn on eBay. I did and I sold. Amazed, the more I sold the more I got encouraged and I haven’t stopped.

“The yarn that I sale is wound into cakes of yarn, the fiber content is listed along with the actual yardage, weight in grams and ounces, and the original label. Today I travel around to fiber shows and sale in person. I love to introduce knitters, crocheters, weavers and felters to recycled yarn.

“Not everybody likes recycled yarn. Some of the comments that I get are ‘I will never buy used yarn’ to ‘how wonderful is to purchase fiber that is not going into the landfill’. I try to have samples in my booth of a variety of garments made from the yarns that I reclaim. Sometimes that sales the yarn.

“Over the years I probably unraveled more than 600 sweaters.”

That’s a lot of unwanted sweaters given a new life!

Recycled Yarn Co. has a continually changing range of fine-quality yarns for sale, including luxury fibres like silk and cashmere for very reasonable prices. As the yarns are recycled from commercial knit sweaters, they typically laceweight, but can be held together for heavier-gauge projects, and are in lots of 1000m+. Yarn can be shipped worldwide upon request.

You may also be inspired to have a go at recycling a sweater yourself, which although time-consuming, is very cheap. EJ Jones is a knitter who works exclusively with natural fibre yarn he up-cycles from thrift store sweaters. He shares a few tips and tricks in this video.

[Anyone else got thrift store envy? They’re not quite like that in London.]

We’ve explored two inventive and successful business ideas for yarn reuse/recycling that turn unwanted goods into great-value, useful materials. Both offer both a personal touch but also a retail experience. By ensuring that yarn is well presented, labelled and in good condition, they avoid the negative associations we may have with “second hand”.

Next time in Part 3, we look at other sources of yarn and how they measure up for sustainability and cost.